


And It's Time To Leave The Woods

by splash_the_cat



Category: Jupiter Ascending (2015)
Genre: F/M, Gen, M/M, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-26
Updated: 2016-11-26
Packaged: 2018-09-02 09:14:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8661460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/splash_the_cat/pseuds/splash_the_cat
Summary: Collection of unconnected out-takes from other stories and slice-of-life bits.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Oh, if life were made of moments,  
> Even now and then a bad one--!  
> But if life were only moments,  
> Then you'd never know you had one...  
> First a witch, then a child, then a Prince, then a moment--  
> Who can live in the woods?  
> And to get what you wish, only just for a moment--  
> These are dangerous woods..  
> Let the moment go..  
> Don't forget it for a moment, though.  
> Just remembering you had an 'and,' when you're back to 'or,'  
> Makes the 'or' mean more than is did before.  
> Now I understand--  
> And it's time to leave the woods.”  
> ― Stephen Sondheim, Into the Woods

I started this as a scene for "The Gravity of Duties or the Groundspeed of Joy" and realized halfway through I'd done it as Caine's POV (Gravity is Jupiter's voice and story), so I thought I'd make a spot for it elsewhere.

___________________________________________

 Sprawled out on their bed, Caine idly wondered if the mythic somniferous properties of turkey were in fact true, or if his haze of contentment and lethargy was because he'd eaten his own weight in dinner. Sleep blurred even those thoughts and he'd almost slipped over the edge when the sweet scent of spiced pumpkin and Jupiter drew him back. He blinked to find her seated next to him, balancing a plate of pumpkin pie on her knee.  

"Don't worry. I saved you some."  She cut off a neat bite with her fork and ate it, then cut another, and fed it to him, but with her fingers. He licked the creamy sweet and spice from her fingertips, catching one against the tip of his canine until her heartbeat started to trip faster.

In retaliation Jupiter straddled him, landing on his bloated stomach. He belched.

"Charming. That fourth piece of pie?"  She shoved a huge bite in her mouth.

"Probably." He plucked the plate from her hand and set it aside before he rolled them, settling his hips into the cradle of hers, his cock waking up even as he sleepily nuzzled into the hollow of her throat and yawned.  "It was good pie."

Jupiter stroked his arms, slow and soothing. "And Ludmilla was delighted by your rate of consumption and will probably want to adopt you and feed you."  

"Are you trying to warn me or talk me into it?"  They overwhelmed him, but he liked Jupiter's family. Their casual touch, their fierce, complicated loyalty.  They weren't always nice people, but they were good, on the whole.  The crucible that formed the woman who he worshiped as his queen, the woman who woke tangled up with him each morning and smoothed the rumpled tufts of his hair, who made faces at his breath but kissed him anyway. The woman he loved so much it terrified him sometimes.

He breathed her in, drawing her scent deep, memorizing it as he did a hundred times a day, teasing out her moods, what she'd eaten last, where she was in her cycle, and under it all, the essential scent that had drawn him to her across half a galaxy.

"What are you thankful for?"

Propping up on his elbows, Caine cupped her face in his hands. He started to wipe away a smear of pie from the corner of her mouth with one thumb, then leaned in and licked it away. He tasted the scent of her arousal on the back of his tongue in seconds, mingled with the spicy sweet of the confection. "You. Every minute of every day."

"You're gonna give a girl a complex." Her teasing was light, casual, but he caught the swell of love and gratitude - and maybe a little disbelief - under it. 

  
"I'd give you anything." The hoarse gravel of his voice made her shiver and he set his teeth just under her ear, steadying her. She sighed, rocking her hips up as he bit down. It never ceased to amaze him that what he sometimes - still, deep down - worried was a danger, she saw as security and safety, as an anchor. He licked the pulse there and bit again, earning a breathless, beautiful, "Oh, fuck, _Caine_..."  He mouthed along her jaw and pressed his lips to hers, soft and sweet. 

 "Anything, huh?" she whispered in his ear, dragging her fingers down his sides and between them to work at the fastening at his waistband.  "What about the last piece of pie?"

Gratitude was too small a concept to encompass the enormity of Jupiter's impact on his life. The laughter, the love, the incandescent  _joy_...  He grinned as he helped her into his pants, groaning unabashedly as her fingers wrapped around his cock. "Even I have limits."


End file.
